Anti-western sentiment flourishes in China

PM - Thursday, 24 April , 2008 18:14:00

Reporter: Mark Colvin

MARK COLVIN: As we heard in a report from Beijing yesterday, there's a growing anti-foreign backlash in China over the anti-torch protests.

In a country where it's not just the official media but also the Internet that are heavily censored, people see the protests as attacks on China itself.

And many believe what they've been told about Tibet; that Chinese rule has actually given Tibetans far more rights than are allowed to ordinary Chinese.

What's all that going to do to China's relations with the rest of the world?

Someone who's had extensive high-level diplomatic experience with the Chinese is James Kelly.

He was US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2001 to 2005.

JAMES KELLY: In many ways the legitimacy of the Chinese leaders, at least for quite a while has been based on two things; the economic improvements that have occurred in so many people's lives in China, and the sense of nationalism, which has a way, and I'm no expert in this, but it has a way of shifting into a kind of a victimisation; a sense that the Chinese have been kicked around for 150 years and they're made as hell and they're not gonna take it anymore.

MARK COLVIN: And this is filtered down. This isn't just about the Chinese leadership being angry. This is appearing on blogs and all over the Internet.

JAMES KELLY: No.

What's interesting, if anything it's more intense among younger Chinese, say under 30s, than it is among those in the 40 to 50 range. And when you get into older Chinese, these are people who've experienced the Cultural Revolution, maybe back to the famines that had China so badly back almost 50 years ago, the time of the Revolution. It was an agonising process and it's quite understandable that any person that ever went through that doesn't ever want to see something like that again.

And so when leaders have brought degrees of prosperity that none have had before, but this feeling of history and that China has thrown off its bonds in a way, is remarkably strong and it's potentially a little dangerous, especially if it's misunderstood.

MARK COLVIN: How much though is it about the way that those people are being fed information in a thoroughly censored environment?

JAMES KELLY: Well I think that is a major component of it. I think that is probably not the whole thing but I think that is a big component about it. The news is focused; the restrictions on Internet.

It is possible I think for any smart Chinese to circumvent their restrictions and pick up news from anywhere that they want, but most people don't feel the need to do that. So they're taking the news they get from the sources that they see which give them a very one-sided portrayal as I understand it, about things like Tibet.

MARK COLVIN: And there's nothing that the rest of the world can do about that? I mean some people thought that the Olympics, because the Chinese made certain promises about freedom of the press and human rights, would open things up there.

JAMES KELLY: I suspect that there are going to be unintended consequences from the Olympics, some of which will be quite possible. But there's nothing like this that's a miracle doer.

But these human perception problems, especially when it's people who are living their lives not focused on larger questions of this sort; I think they can be affected, but it takes a very long time.

MARK COLVIN: At the beginning of the Bush administration there was a lot written and talked about on how China was going to be the big foreign policy challenge for the United States and now that seems to have really receded.

JAMES KELLY: Well it's receded because of the enormous focus on things in the Middle East. Obviously Iraq, certainly Afghanistan, but also Pakistan, certainly Iran, Israel and its problems, even Turkey and often the Balkans of Kosovo. All of these things are commanding daily attention and they've led to a kind of a distraction.

But I think it has also been found that there are a lot of things that the US and China can cooperate on to their mutual benefit. My successor, Ambassador Chris Hill I think in a recent speech, I don't know how seriously he was taking this, but he said that we needed to thank Kim Jong-il, of North Korea, for helping a lot of improvement in Sino-US relations. And indeed the six party talks have provided a useful venue for cooperation.

MARK COLVIN: Former US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly.

And you can hear an extended version of that interview, in which he talks about Taiwan and North Korea on our website from later this evening.